Grace Blogs

C.A. sent me a link to a story about the American Humanist Association spending $40,000 on an ad campaign asking: “Why believe in a god?” I was especially intrigued by this because our Gospel Conversations class is paying a lot of attention to the sort of questions people ask, and here’s a big one gift-wrapped and served up on a plate.

Rather than serve up some pat answers here, I’d rather hear from you, Grace Fellowship (especially you Gospel Conversationalists out there)… Why believe in a god?

(P.S. Please do a better job than the American Family Association’s representative, who said, “It’s a stupid ad.” He said some other things after that, but by then I wasn’t

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On Sunday, the Gospel Conversations class discussed “pre-evangelism.” What’s that? If “evangelism” is “telling people about the good news,” then “pre-evangelism” is what you do before you tell people the good news. After all, “take up your cross and follow me” is not good news unless you know the whole story.

D.A. Carson has written a helpful article on Acts 17 in which he outlines the need for explaining the “big story” of the Bible in our evangelism:

Paul at the Areopagus in Athens has established an entire frame of reference before he gets to Jesus. He has challenged the Greek worldview with his JudeoChristian worldview. If he had presented clichés like “Jesus died

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Here’s the situation: you’re in a conversation with someone about the Gospel. The person you’re talking with says, “Let me ask you a question.” You feel a pit forming in your stomach because there are some questions you really, really don’t want to be asked.

I want to build up an inventory of those questions, so let me have ‘em. Please use the mail form to send in your questions—I’ve turned off the comments because I don’t want anybody to be afraid of asking questions “in public.” (Note: if you’d actually like a question answered, please indicate

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I just learned that Google Books are embeddable in blog posts, so I thought I’d give it a try with the title I called out yesterday, Randy Newman’s Questioning Evangelism:

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During Sunday’s Gospel Conversations class, I quoted a bit from a great book I read over the summer: Questioning Evangelism. The title does not mean the author questions the value of evangelism — rather, he advocates evangelism that is characterized by asking lots of questions. If you want a smart, fresh take on evangelism, I highly recommend this book. (Also see the review at 9Marks.)

Here’s the quote I read during our class, which focused on the gravity of sin and the fact that we can’t really understand the Gospel

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Note: what follows is not the approach we’re teaching in the Gospel Conversations class, but it’s good for a chuckle from the Jollyblogger:

The truth of the gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others and beat it into their heads continually. — Martin Luther

Just for fun… any captions you’d add to this picture?

“Have you ever heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?”

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For everyone in the Gospel Conversations Connections class, please read and/or listen to Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in time for our next class (October 5).

Download the Text

Download the Audio (Preached by Mark Dever)

You don’t have to become a Jonathan Edwards scholar—just pay attention to the way Edwards’ presentation of the Gospel is driven by a deep appreciation for the horror of sin.

Next time, having covered the bad news, we’ll get to the good news as we talk about the unique and central role played by Jesus Christ.

 

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[via JT]

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Homework for this week’s Gospel Conversations class is to listen to a message from Sovereign Grace Ministries called “Conversational Apologetics.” Besides being made available free of charge, it’s lively, funny, easy to listen to, and worth taking in more than once.

(It seems to me it could just as easily have been called “Conversational Evangelism” — this is one of those times when the line between evangelism and apologetics is so blurry it’s not worth trying to pick it apart.)

The message was delivered by Michael Ramsden, the European director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Click

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